Team Ninja “Rethinking” What The Ninja Gaiden Series Means

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge on Wii U will be a better game than Ninja Gaiden 3, Team Ninja head, Yosuke Hayashi, insists. Speaking with the New York Daily News, Hayashi said that, with Razor’s Edge, Team Ninja simply intend to make a good game.

“The concept for the Wii U version of Razor’s Edge is for it to be its own action game, an action game that doesn’t try to be anything else,” Hayashi says. “It just tries to be its best.”

Why didn’t they do this in the first place? Hayashi has given a couple of reasons for this. Speaking with Gamasutra at E3, Hayashi stated that Ninja Gaiden 3 simply tried too hard to cater to western tastes instead of playing to Team Ninja’s own strengths. When discussing the game with the New York Daily News, Hayashi gave a similar reason: trying to follow industry trends.

“We looked at the game industry and how things were shaping up, and we felt we couldn’t get left behind,” he shares. “And we had to advance ourselves. And that was the idea behind some of the changes in NG3.”

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, however, will incorporate feedback gleaned from Ninja Gaiden 3, Hayashi says. He adds: “And we re-examined what the series was, what the game was, what people want. We’re going back to rethinking what the series means.”

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge will add a character and weapon development system by which you can upgrade Ryu’s weapons and abilities. It will also bring back dismemberment, add new enemy types, multiple weapons, and new Ninpo. Nintendo, not Tecmo Koei, will publish the game this holiday season.